Pitcher Precision

Sasank Vishnubhatla

4/17/2019

Last Update: 2019-05-01 16:02:25

Libraries

Let’s load some libraries in first.

library(baseballr)
library(pitchRx)
library(tidyverse)

Let’s also clean out environment.

rm(list = ls())

With these libraries, we can get out data as well as visaulize it. Let’s take a look at some players to see what we can look at.

Data Loading

Here are the list of players I will be looking at.

  • Noah Syndergaard - Player ID: 592789
  • Patrick Corbin - Player ID: 571578
  • Felipe Vazquez - Player ID: 553878
  • Marcus Stroman - Player ID: 573186
  • Justin Verlander - Player ID: 434378
  • Blake Treinen - Player ID: 595014

Let’s now scrape the data for each player.

scrape.data = function(start, id) {
    data = scrape_statcast_savant(start_date = start,
                                  end_date = "2019-04-22",
                                  playerid = id,
                                  player_type = 'pitcher')
    data
}

start = "2019-01-01"

syndergaard.data = scrape.data(start, 592789)
corbin.data = scrape.data(start, 571578)
vazquez.data = scrape.data(start, 553878)
stroman.data = scrape.data(start, 573186)
verlander.data = scrape.data(start, 434378)
treinen.data = scrape.data(start, 595014)

Now with our data, let’s get the information we want out of it.

filter.data = function(data) {
    filtered = data.frame(name = data %>% pull(player_name),
                          pitch = data %>% pull(pitch_type),
                          outcome = data %>% pull(type),
                          date = data %>% pull(game_date),
                          event = data %>% pull(events),
                          descrip = data %>% pull(description),
                          xcoord = data %>% pull(plate_x),
                          ycoord = data %>% pull(plate_z),
                          xmove = data %>% pull(pfx_x),
                          ymove = data %>% pull(pfx_z),
                          velo = data %>% pull(effective_speed),
                          spin = data %>% pull(release_spin_rate),
                          exvelo = data %>% pull(launch_speed),
                          exang = data %>% pull(launch_angle))
    filtered
}

syndergaard = filter.data(syndergaard.data)
corbin = filter.data(corbin.data)
stroman = filter.data(stroman.data)
treinen = filter.data(treinen.data)
vazquez = filter.data(vazquez.data)
verlander = filter.data(verlander.data)

With this filtered data, we have selected the following columns:

  • Name
  • Pitch type
  • Pitch outcome (Strike, Ball, In play)
  • Game Date
  • Event
  • Description of event
  • X coordinate (horizontal location) of pitch
  • Y coordinate (vertical location) of pitch
  • Horizontal movement (X coordinate movement) of pitch
  • Vertical movement (Y coordinate movement) of pitch
  • Velocity of pitch
  • Spin rate of pitch
  • Exit velocity of pitch
  • Launch angle of pitch

Visualization

Let’s start visualizing some of this data. Before that, let me define a strikezone. This strikezone was taken from the website Baseball with R

topKzone = 3.5
botKzone = 1.6
inKzone = -.95
outKzone = 0.95
kZone = data.frame(x = c(inKzone, inKzone, outKzone, outKzone, inKzone),
                   y = c(botKzone, topKzone, topKzone, botKzone, botKzone))

Pitch Location via Pitch Type

Let’s look at pitch location via pitch type.

graph.pitch.heatmap.type = function(player) {
    graph = ggplot(player) +
        geom_jitter(aes(x = player$xcoord,
                        y = player$ycoord,
                        color = player$pitch)) +
        xlab("Horizontal Position") +
        ylab("Vertical Position") +
        ggtitle(paste(player$name[1], "Heatmap", sep = " ")) +
        labs(color = "Pitch Type") +
        theme_minimal() + geom_path(aes(x, y), data = kZone)
    graph
}

corbin.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(corbin)
corbin.heatmap.type

stroman.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(stroman)
stroman.heatmap.type

syndergaard.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(syndergaard)
syndergaard.heatmap.type
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing missing values (geom_point).

treinen.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(treinen)
treinen.heatmap.type
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing missing values (geom_point).

vazquez.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(vazquez)
vazquez.heatmap.type

verlander.heatmap.type = graph.pitch.heatmap.type(verlander)
verlander.heatmap.type

Pitch Location via Velocity

Let’s look at pitch location via velocity.

graph.pitch.heatmap.velo = function(player.data) {
    graph = ggplot(player.data) +
        geom_jitter(aes(x = player.data$xcoord,
                        y = player.data$ycoord,
                        color = player.data$velo)) +
        xlab("Horizontal Position") +
        ylab("Vertical Position") +
        ggtitle(paste(player.data$name[1], "Heatmap", sep = " ")) +
        labs(color = "Velocity") +
        scale_color_gradient(low = "blue", high = "red") +
        theme_minimal() + geom_path(aes(x, y), data = kZone)
    graph
}

corbin.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(corbin)
corbin.heatmap.velo

stroman.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(stroman)
stroman.heatmap.velo

syndergaard.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(syndergaard)
syndergaard.heatmap.velo
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing missing values (geom_point).

treinen.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(treinen)
treinen.heatmap.velo
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing missing values (geom_point).

vazquez.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(vazquez)
vazquez.heatmap.velo

verlander.heatmap.velo = graph.pitch.heatmap.velo(verlander)
verlander.heatmap.velo

Pitch Movement

To view the movement, let’s just determine the average movement for each type of pitch that each player has. First let’s make a few helpful functions for us.

graph.pitch.xmovement = function(player) {
    graph = ggplot(player) +
        geom_boxplot(aes(x = player$pitch,
                         y = player$xmove,
                         color = player$pitch)) +
        coord_flip() +
        labs(color = "Pitch Type") +
        xlab("Pitch Type") + ylab("Horizontal Movement") +
        ggtitle(paste(player$name[1], "Horizontal Movement", sep = " ")) +
        theme_minimal()
}

graph.pitch.ymovement = function(player) {
    graph = ggplot(player) +
        geom_boxplot(aes(x = player$pitch,
                         y = player$ymove,
                         color = player$pitch)) +
        labs(color = "Pitch Type") +
        xlab("Pitch Type") + ylab("Vertical Movement") +
        ggtitle(paste(player$name[1], "Vertical Movement", sep = " ")) +
        theme_minimal()
}

Patrick Corbin

corbin.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(corbin)
corbin.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(corbin)
corbin.xmove

corbin.ymove

Marcus Stroman

stroman.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(stroman)
stroman.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(stroman)
stroman.xmove

stroman.ymove

Noah Syndergaard

syndergaard.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(syndergaard)
syndergaard.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(syndergaard)
syndergaard.xmove
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing non-finite values (stat_boxplot).

syndergaard.ymove
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing non-finite values (stat_boxplot).

Blake Treinen

treinen.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(treinen)
treinen.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(treinen)
treinen.xmove
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing non-finite values (stat_boxplot).

treinen.ymove
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing non-finite values (stat_boxplot).

Felipe Vazquez

vazquez.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(vazquez)
vazquez.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(vazquez)
vazquez.xmove

vazquez.ymove

Justin Verlander

verlander.xmove = graph.pitch.xmovement(verlander)
verlander.ymove = graph.pitch.ymovement(verlander)
verlander.xmove

verlander.ymove

Pitch Velocity

We need to separate each pitch first by type. Then we can see how the pitch’s velocity changed over time.

graph.pitch.velo = function(player) {
    graph = ggplot(player) +
        geom_line(aes(x = 1:length(player$velo),
                      y = player$velo,
                      color = player$pitch)) +
        xlab("Pitches Thrown") + ylab("Velocity") + labs(color = "Pitch Type") +
        ggtitle(paste(player$name[1], "Pitch Velocity Chart", sep = " ")) +
        theme_minimal()
}

corbin.velo = graph.pitch.velo(corbin)
corbin.velo

stroman.velo = graph.pitch.velo(stroman)
stroman.velo

syndergaard.velo = graph.pitch.velo(syndergaard)
syndergaard.velo
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing missing values (geom_path).

treinen.velo = graph.pitch.velo(treinen)
treinen.velo
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing missing values (geom_path).

vazquez.velo = graph.pitch.velo(vazquez)
vazquez.velo

verlander.velo = graph.pitch.velo(verlander)
verlander.velo

Pitch Spin Rate

graph.pitch.spin = function(player) {
    graph = ggplot(player) +
        geom_step(aes(x = 1:length(player$spin),
                      y = player$spin,
                      color = player$pitch),
                  direction = "vh") +
        xlab("Pitches Thrown") + ylab("Spin Rate") + labs(color = "Pitch Type") +
        ggtitle(paste(player$name[1], "Pitch Spin Rate Chart", sep = " ")) +
        theme_minimal()
}

corbin.spin = graph.pitch.spin(corbin)
corbin.spin

stroman.spin = graph.pitch.spin(stroman)
stroman.spin

syndergaard.spin = graph.pitch.spin(syndergaard)
syndergaard.spin
## Warning: Removed 1 rows containing missing values (geom_path).

treinen.spin = graph.pitch.spin(treinen)
treinen.spin
## Warning: Removed 23 rows containing missing values (geom_path).

vazquez.spin = graph.pitch.spin(vazquez)
vazquez.spin

verlander.spin = graph.pitch.spin(verlander)
verlander.spin

Analysis

I’ll be looking at a few specific Pittsburgh Pirates pitchers and looking at them from year to year.

Jameson Taillon

Richard Rodriguez

Joe Musgrove

Jordan Lyles

Kyle Crick